Page:The History of Liberty.djvu/27

 lead the sons of freedom to victory and conquest. Little did they think that Liberty like her twin sister Christianity flourished most, and was most strong and pure when most persecuted and assailed; that the seeds of both sprung from the blood of their slaughtered children—, and that in all ages the abundance and fruitfulness of the seed were ever in proportion to the quantity of blood shed. And ah little did they think that their edicts of exile and transportation from the old world, were just so many grants to the genius of Liberty to establish herself in the new, on foundations; broad as the continent, deep as the ocean depths that surround it; and firm and as perpetual as its own eternal mountains; and that from that distant world to which they had exiled Liberty in want starvation and rags, dead, as they supposed and buried forever from the eye and ear of high and royal oppression, little did they apprehend that that ragged and beggarly brat, so offensive to royal eyes, and illustrious nostrils, might, one day in its gambols, and juvenile frolics kick over half the thrones of Europe, while haughty monarchs will cower and tremble in its presence.

Thus gentlemen of the Athenæan Society, have we endeavored to give you a brief history of Liberty: its origin and character. It is of God and not of than, and must therefore prevail and triumph over all opposition; and like all truth her advancement in the world though slow, will be sure and permanent; fail she cannot, because she is not an accident in our world, nor the invention of men. Neither Greece nor Rome has the honor of her birth and being. Nor is Plymouth rock, nor Bunker hill, the cradle in which her infancy was cherished. Hers is a higher and holier nativity than these, sacred and noble though they be. Bethlehem’s manger that received the infant Lord of life, glory and immortality, was at the same time the humble cradle of true and imperishable Liberty—: that Liberty, the twin sister of Christianity, constitutes an essential part of that message, the celestial announcement of which, startled the shepherds in their midnight watch on Bethlehem’s plains; “the glad tidings of great joy to all the people.” To no school of sages and philosophers was this communication made; nor to the high the mighty and the honored of the children of men: not to kings and emperors—; nor to Cæsar, whose servants were emperors and kings; nor to the high priests at Jerusalem; the scribes pharisees—and doctors of law wise and righteous in their own estimation beyond measure; but to the lowly and obscure; whose humble labors by night and by day procured them the food they ate and the raiment they wore.